Ben Bishop allowed 3 goals on 43 shots for the victory. The whole game was played under score effects (as the fancy stat people say) conditions with the Lightning putting together a commanding lead early and coasting most of the rest of the way.

This was an absolute squash from just about the second shift, and the Lightning barely had to put forth an effort against Toronto to get the result. That kind of effort won't work most nights, but mercy did Toronto offer little to no resistance to the Lightning tonight. Scary for the NHL: Nikita Kucherov got well in this contest. His quick release on his first goal of the season signaled the rust is off, and his reign of terror is set to begin this season.

Brayden Point had a helper and was +1 with 1 shot in 17:19. He got to dip into the deep well of garbage time for some extra experience tonight. Bonus.

Nikita Gusev's mini slump died hard today beneath an avalanche of points in SKA's 6-1 drubbing of Slovan Bratislava. The young forward a power play helper on the game opening goal and a goal and an assist at even strength the rest of the way in a total of 15:24 of ice time. Linemates Evgeny Dadonov (1-2-3) and Vadim Shipachyov (0-4-4) also enjoyed multi-point games. Gusev moved back to 3rd in the KHL in scoring with the outburst. SKA won its 10th straight game and sits in first place in the Western Conference.

Nic Riopel follows up last weekend's shutout of Norfolk with a 41 save win against the Komets in front of 7200+ at the Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne. Riopel earned First Star honors once again, and now leads the ECHL in both save percentage and goals against average. The K-Wings were propelled by a 3-goal 2nd period and defenseman Adam Comrie had an assist and was +3 in helping hand the Komets their first loss of the season. Former Toronto first rounder Tyler Biggs was signed mid-week by the K-Wings and made his debut scoring a goal and assisting on another. Kalamazoo plays a home-and-home next Friday and Saturday against Wheeling before completing the 3-in-3 on Sunday at home against Allen.

Andrei Vasilevskiy allowed 1 goal on 28 shots for the victory. He had next to no work for the first half of this game, so when Ottawa made their push toward the end of the Second Period he looked a little shaky, particularly on his rebound control. He collected himself and made some key saves at the start of the Third Period to keep the Sens at bay and eventually allow the Lightning to cruise to the win.

The Lightning showed me something tonight after a bit of a clunker last time out against Colorado. They came into this game... maybe not grumpy... but certainly determined to get the bad taste of that match out of their mouths. They completely dominated the First Period and most of the Second Period to build a 2-0 lead. In the future, you'd hope they'd build up that 3-0 lead to make things easy on themselves, but they did give Ottawa a couple of power plays that allowed the Senators to build some momentum and make a game of it cutting the lead to 2-1. The Lightning showed composure, though, and eventually reasserted their dominance and eventually turned the game into a laugher.

Side note: Stamkos' power play goal was a textbook example of what I was clamoring for last season and what Washington does so well: create a pressure point with Kucherov and Namestinkov on the opposite side of the ice from Stamkos' circle, and allow Steve to drift to the open spots/seams for easy goals away from the play. That's how you make this power play unstoppable if you don't have a quality righty point man who scares people.

Halfway through the opening 10 game segment of the season, Tampa Bay has a brisk 8 points. They need just 4 over the next 5 games to stay on minimum playoff pace. When you get off to a hot start like this, though, it's a perfect opportunity to put the hammer down and bank some insurance points to cover any potential bumps in the road as the season drags on.

Brayden Point had a helper and was +2 with 1 shot, 1 hit, and 1 blocked shot in 14:35.

Needless to say, when you give up a pair of shorthanded goals as a team you probably deserve to lose. For a team this stacked to be sitting at .500 now is a little bit of a splash of cold water. We'll see how the team responds.

Saku Salminen was -1 in 8:02 of ice time in SaiPa's 3-2 win over KooKoo. Ex-Oilers pick Curtis Hamilton had 1 goal and 1 assist for SaiPa in the win. It was a rare positive result for SaiPa, which currently labors in 13th place on the 15-team Liiga table, one spot ahead of KooKoo